Album Review: BoA - The Greatest

2022 marks the 20th anniversary of BoA’s Japanese career. And despite BoA’s J-pop career being somewhat of a shadow of what it once was, there’s still a market for her in the land of the rising sun. But with BoA’s sales falling faster than Baby Vox on a turntable, no longer having sales power, and barely being active in Japan for the past decade, it’s not like Avex are begging and harassing a bitch to put something out. And it’s not like BoA is as invested in her Japanese career as she once was - which is what makes The Greatest such a pleasant surprise

The Greatest is a pleasant surprise, because Avex seemingly did very little other than distribute it. Lee Soo-man had SM Entertainment step in and handle this shit. If Avex were leading the charge on BoA’s 20th anniversary release, they woulda just had BoA put out a Best album. But with SM having stepped in, The Greatest is an album of self covers.

Compilations, greatest hits and best albums aren’t really a thing in K-pop, which is why BoA’s 20th anniversary release in Korea was a studio album. And is probably why SM chose to commemorate the occasion in Japan with a self-cover album - which aligns with part of what they did to celebrate BoA’s 20th Korean anniversary, with reimagining some of her old music videos.

Going the self cover route was a really smart choice. Best albums have so little value now in the age of streaming, where every service has artist playlists, which are essentially best albums with nothing being left off, and new stuff being added as it releases. And a new Japanese studio album of original material would have so little impact. An album of self covers makes complete sense, as it has the sentiment of both a best release and original material. It gives fans something that’s new, whilst honouring BoA’s musical legacy and the songs fans know her for. Whilst BoA started her career in K-pop, many of her fans were introduced to her through J-pop, and have grown with her. So playing on this nostalgia, and having BoA reinterpret these songs as a grown woman for all of her now grown fans to listen to - it’s spot on.

BoA | The Greatest

Cashing in on nostalgia is honestly the only thing that SM or Avex could do with BoA right now in Japan, because none of her recent Japanese material over the past 10 years has stuck or been particularly good.

Ever since BoA tapped out of Japan to dedicate more to her once neglected K-pop career, there’s been a gulf which has grown between BoA’s Japanese releases and her Korean releases. Whilst everybody shat on BoA’s seventh Japanese studio album Identity, it marked a significant turning point for BoA. Not only was it her first Japanese album to flop, which marked the beginning of the end of her sales streak. But most importantly, Identity saw BoA taking a far more active role in her own music as a songwriter and a producer, which she then carried over to her Korean releases. And as a result, her Korean albums shot up in quality and consistency, whilst her Japanese albums got worse.

The Greatest is a clever way to bridge the gap between the BoA we’ve gotten in K-pop over the past decade, and the BoA we remember from her J-pop heyday, when she was one of J-pop’s biggest sellers, and was helping the top brass at Avex get their bonuses.

The end results on The Greatest aren’t always great. But I fully believe that what we get with The Greatest is better than what we would have gotten had BoA recorded an original Japanese album.

BoA | The Greatest

With this not being some expansive 3 disc / 30+ track affair, we only get an albums’ worth of songs. So the song selections are not going to please everybody. But these songs are self-covers and reimagining's of old songs. So even if you really liked an old song of BoA’s, there’s no guarantee you’d like how it’d turn out here anyway. But what we get with The Greatest does a good job of covering all of BoA’s known bases musically. We get some uptempo cuts, a club cut, some mid-tempos joints, a slow jam and a ballad. It’s a well rounded set of songs, with something for every fan, even if your song of choice didn’t make the cut.

The musicality and preferences for certain sounds that BoA has displayed and developed on all of her Korean releases since Only One is very evident here, which is great. The problem is that we don’t get the same level of consistency.

BoA | The Greatest

The quality of the self-covers varies quite a bit.

Some songs sound like they got more effort from BoA than others. On some songs you can clearly hear the growth in BoA’s vocals and approach to singing. Whereas on some songs, you can’t hear any growth in BoA at all, because she is just emulating how she sang the song the first time around.

This variance in quality also extends to some of the production and arrangement choices, which feel pretty sparse on the whole. There are a couple of songs on The Greatest where the sparseness actually works. “Every Heart -Minna no Kimochi-” being stripped from a typical J-R&B ballad with all of the twinkles and strings, into a straight up R&B song led by slinking basslines and a guitar works wonders. And the same goes for “Kono Yo No Shirushi”, which gets a similar treatment. But “Aggressive” and “Dakishimeru” aren’t so fortunate to benefit from a strip down. The Greatest versions of both songs have their energy pared back pretty significantly compared to the original versions, which is not inherently a bad thing. But the problem here is that the removal of the original energy isn’t replaced or supplemented with anything else. “Aggressive” starts off really strong, with a vibe which feels far darker and seductive than the original. But then the chorus hits, and it just sounds like everything is missing. Then the middle 8 hits and it’s as though the engineer put five of the tracks on mute, because there is such a glaring lack of music. “Dakishimeru” just sounds like a lesser and slower version of the original. And that’s it. The Greatest version of “Aggressive” at least has a completely different vibe to the original, which works enough for me to like it over the original, which I never liked anyway. But The Greatest version of “Dakishimeru” is just a lesser version of the original. I can’t imagine who would prefer The Greatest version over the 2005 original. If BoA wasn’t going to do anything new with the song, then I don’t know why she even bothered with it. The same can be said for “Listen to My Heart”. It still just sounds like a rip off of Dream’s “He Loves Me Not”, only slower, with a heavier bassline, and as with “Aggressive”, a lacking chorus which wasn’t the case with the original.

But there are instances where The Greatest versions completely deliver on offering something which not only wholly refines and redefines a song, but makes it far more reflective of where BoA is at this point in her life as a woman and an artist. The Greatest version of “Make a Secret” eschews the Michael Jackson wannabe vibes of the original and remodels it into something far more slick, along the lines of “Better” and “Kiss My Lips”. The Greatest version of “Sweet Impact” takes early 2000s top 20 teeny-bop fodder and transforms it into a sultry lounge jazz jaunt. Everything about this version of the song is amazing; tapping into a sweet spot for BoA, and a sound she’s become very smitten with over the years. The Greatest version of “Do the Motion” also gets a similar treatment, and is one instance where it turned out EXACTLY as I had hoped. The Greatest version of “Love Letter” strips away the cute and bright disposition of the original and turns it into a lover’s lament. It’s the really slow, minimal, stirring ballad that BoA managed to avoid releasing too many of. The Greatest version of “Quincy” doesn’t change too much, but still manages to feel new. The best way to describe this version of the song over the original is slicker. The original version of “Quincy” utilised disco in a way that felt kitsch, to such a point that you could imagine BoA in an orange jumpsuit and a blonde afro. The Greatest version of “Quincy” by comparison is far cooler, which makes it sit nicely alongside the many disco influenced songs released by pop stars over the past few years.

The Greatest also features one all new song, which is the album title track. The whole thing sounds like what you’d expect BoA to release in Korea. It’s a surprise to finally witness SM consolidate BoA’s image and sound; having how she has looked and sounded in K-pop for the past decade, finally reflected in a Japanese release. BoA’s 2021 digital single “My Dear” is also included on this album. It’s honestly neither here nor there. But as with “The Greatest”, there is a sense of it being of a sound and vibe that you’d expect from a Korean release of BoA’s, which means that at the very least, it doesn’t completely suck. But it’s still a wholly forgettable song.

BoA | The Greatest

The Greatest is a nice enough package. Although the lack of consistency does let it down, as does the songs which were shortlisted. The song selections should have spanned BoA’s entire Japanese discography up to Identity. The lack of songs from Valenti, Love & Honesty and Made in Twenty (20) are pretty glaring. And the one song we got from The Face wasn’t even a single. As for Identity, I would have really liked to have heard BoA take on “This Is Who I Am” and “Is This Love” with the far more seasoned voice that she has now versus when she recorded these songs back in 2009 / 2010.

And for a wild card, I also would have liked a cover of something from BoA’s US album. After all, this did receive a Japanese release via Best & USA. And SM themselves finally acknowledged the album after years of acting like it didn’t exist, when they recreated the music video for “Eat You Up” back in 2020. BoA’s US album was her just being moulded into what was popular on the radio at the time. So it would have been great to have had BoA reimagine one of these songs in a way which is far more reflective of her; either as she wanted it to sound back then or how she would want it to sound now.

BoA | The Greatest

Whilst SM and Avex between them managed to deliver something good here, I do feel like BoA and The Greatest were short changed. More of BoA’s albums should have been represented in the song selections. And some of these self-covers are so good that I feel they warranted being released as promotional singles with music videos. As iffy as “Aggressive” is, a great music video with a killer routine would have helped create a package, which would have done the song a greater justice. And the fact that the original was never a single, would have made The Greatest version a great choice to be a single. The Greatest Version of “Love Letter” hits so many of the right notes of a classic J-ballad, that it definitely should have been considered as a winter ballad single back in November 2021 instead of “My Dear”. And BoA releasing a self-cover would have had fans wondering why BoA is covering herself and what it could mean. Whereas none of the girls were saying shit when “My Dear” dropped. Barely anybody even knew BoA had released anything.

The premise of The Greatest is…well… Great. BoA has grown so much as an artist over the past 10 years. And whilst that growth started in her Japanese career, her Korean release are what reaped the benefits. So the prospect of BoA paying that back into her older material was a great idea. The problem with the end result is that so many of these self covers feel uninspired. And that lack of care which began to unfortunately define BoA’s Japanese releases creeps into The Greatest and lets it down. But what works here, works wonders. And the prospect of SM being involved and A&R’ing a Japanese studio for BoA in the future is definitely intriguing. Because whilst BoA may not fully care about her Japanese career any more, she still needs to redeem it with a good album. She can’t have the Japanese discography be capped off with Watashi Kono Mama de Ii no Kana.

The Greatest should have felt more like a celebration of who BoA was, and who she has become. Some of the songs achieve this. But The Greatest as a whole still reads like there is this lack of commitment from BoA when it comes to her Japanese material. And BoA played it far too safe with some of these self-covers. Especially for somebody who has embraced taking risks and pushing herself with her Korean releases as of late.

Verdict: “Quincy” shoulda just been titled “Crazy Crazy Love”

Album highlights:
▪ Sweet Impact 🏆
▪ Every Heart (Minna no Kimochi) 🔥
▪ Do the Motion 🔥
▪ Love Letter
▪ Quincy